Human life matters. even so many empires dehumanize mother and children, we can know that Christianity give a holy place for them. With this book, Nadya Williams tell us a history with contemporary significance in our time.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic is a wake up call to the American people to consider how exactly the modern culture values women and children, human life, and the broken systems of education, medicine, and spirituality in the nation. This book is quite frankly, haunting and terrifying. Williams did her research, and the data at least is verifiable facts. This book may lose people, even despite how honest it is, because the author is very openly Christian and that informs 99% of this book and its points. I am in fact one of the actively religious pagan, childless women that this book rails on and on about and against. I haven't been a Christian a day in my life, and I probably will never have kids. HOWEVER, even though the author and I don't see eye to eye on spiritual matters, I still stuck with her book to the end because--

This is important.

It's important to be able to listen to differing points of views and come to civilized, measured conclusions, together. That's what's lacking in the West; the ability to Love Thy Neighbor. This book is important, and God willing, it's able to kick start a much needed discussion across all sorts of different religions, creeds, and political backgrounds about, how exactly do we put the focus back on humanity itself? This book doesn't shy away from being controversial and I respect that. It delves into heavy, relevant topics like lab grown babies, declining birth rates, abortions, how the American education system makes robots of us all, changing attitudes in the Christian church, and so many other important topics. The author is educated, succinct, and would've been a great research attorney if that's what she wanted. She wanted to be a Mom in a culture that devalues Moms on everyday but Mother's Day, and she had the courage to write about her frustrations with the societal attitude about this choice. This book gets nothing but respect from me, even when I strongly disagreed due to my own religious background and upbringing. Christian women ESPECIALLY would benefit from reading this book, and I would recommend it to Christian friends for sure. I think there's a lot though, that non-Christians like myself can get out of this book and hopefully, conversations can lead to change that benefit all sides.

I must start my review with two confessions. I requested this book, based on its description and title, on my first day on NetGalley, and upon receiving the copy, I realised my mistake; this book was not for me for personal reasons. My second confession is that I let the publisher know that I will not be giving feedback and explained the situation, but I had read part of the first chapter then. After days, I thought, despite something being not immediately appealing, I should give it chance. Depending on how you align yourself in the world, this book would be between 2 and 5 stars. I liked that at the core, the emphasis is on helping new mothers and their children. I also appreciated the way the author built their argument, and the consistency in citing their resources. This is a good book for those with similar worldviews to the author. Otherwise, it is still a persuasive writing style and I was happy to spend time on learning the other ways of thinking/opinions than mine.